Stronger Standards for PVC Plants

Earlier this week, a U.S. Court of Appeals denied the Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) industry’s request to delay the April 2015 compliance date for federal limits on the toxic pollution emitted by PVC plastics plants. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Mossville Environmental Action Now, Air Alliance Houston and Sierra Club, represented by Earthjustice, fought the industry’s request, which would have put off badly needed and long overdue pollution reductions for several more years.

Last year, the EPA proposed an air rule that would finally limit the amount of cancer-causing chemicals residents in Mossville, Louisiana would have to breathe from the polyvinyl chloride plant nearby. So it came as a blow when the EPA released a final rule that imposes weaker limits at the CertainTeed plant in Mossville—a facility that emits 19 tons of poisonous air pollutants a year.

Edgar Mouton lived much of his 76 years in Mossville, Louisiana, and for the past decade fought doggedly to obtain federal protections from the toxic pollution that pours into Mossville from the largest concentration of PVC and vinyl manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and a host of other hazardous industrial facilities. As a great-grandfather and leader of Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN), Mr. Mouton worked to prevent the rising rates of cancer, respiratory disease and other illnesses suffered by residents of the historic African American community in southwest Louisiana.